Spiritual war in 2024 is here. I have spoken to many friends, family and acquaintances across the nation and everyone seems to be experiencing a similar sense of impending doom, or at minimum, uncertainty and anxiety concerning where our nation, culture and even the Church is heading.
This actually reminds of the feeling that overcame so many, including myself, in the second half of 2019. I even posted on social media in July 2019 that I felt something odd was in the air and that spirtual warfare was on the rise. Of course, three months later came the Pachamama scandal in the Vatican and then not coincidentally the onset of the Covid scamdemic shortly thereafter. I have the same feeling about the upcoming year 2024 as I did in 2019.
I think we can all agree that 2024 is going to be an interesting year in American politics as we see what can best be described as the last gasps of a constitutional Republic that had a decent run for over two centuries but is meeting its inevitable demise.
Why do I say that? Because the United States was not founded on the Kingship of Christ, but a protestant, post-enlightenment idea of natural rights, which the “the People,” not God, is the source of all authority and truth—at least when it comes to political ideals. We know a house must be built on rock, not upon sand (Matthew 7:24-26).
The Current State of Political Affairs
The Republican Party (GOP), at least in my home state of Colorado and many others, is effectively dead. There may be individual Republicans who may still be trustworthy, but those numbers are dwindling.
The battle was lost because the party refused to stand for anything other than not being Democrats. If I am a run-of-the-mill average Joe American trying to survive in this culture, as a political consumer, I don’t care that you are not a Democrat. I also don’t care if you are “big tent” because if your “big tent” includes just a bunch of corrupt, moral degenerates, it doesn’t matter how many varieties of such trash you are selling me. I don’t care that you want to promote business when the businesses you promote are going to kill me and my family. I don’t care that you think you can out-liberal the progressive left by guaranteeing the people who want to kill me more freedoms. I don’t want to give my enemies more freedom, I want them destroyed.
The progressive left promises free money, free sex, free entertainment, freedom from suffering and death without any effort and they cater to the animalistic passions of every person— ironically, they know more about Original Sin than any typical American conservative because they know how to play off of it to keep power. At the same time, conservatives pretend to be Christians, yet refuse to call out evil when they see it or live by the morals they profess.
The only solution to this problem is to sell what most men and women are desperate for, a platform based on fundamental Truth, that acknowledges challenges and difficulties, and doesn’t promise an easy sell. It must be based on moral courage, the courage to speak the Truth, real truth concerning the most important things in life. Not what the tax rate needs to be, but real truth that touches the souls of every person. Things like the purpose and meaning of human existence, the role of the family and sexuality, the role of God in civil society and government, and the duties and roles of each individual, NOT their rights. Every good public policy is easily explained if those fundamentals are in place.
Why not talk about rights? Because that’s what liberals talk about—rights without duties. Locke and his intellectual heirs (including Rousseau) corrupted the notion of natural rights, and we are living with the consequences. Rights were divorced from Truth and became expressions of whatever “the People” want. Real men accept duties inherent to their station and role in life and rights derive from the need to carry out those duties. “I have a duty to do X and I need the freedom to do it” not “You owe me this (or I can do this) because I have a right.”
So, rather than trying to outsell Democrats on their poison maybe the GOP will sell the real deal, which might not have pretty packaging, but produces REAL results because it is based on something real. Until that happens, it’s time to consider alternatives for building up a new culture and eventually a new political order.
What a New Order Looks Like
This begs the question: what would a new Catholic order look like? Well, this is tough to answer if we assume the citizens of the nation do not have a change of heart and conversion to Catholic Christianity.
Conversion to the faith is, of course, the number one priority because without conversions there will be no Catholic order to replace this collapsing former republic. I will attempt to address how we can help bring about such conversions in future articles.
But assuming we make some headway with conversions, or at minimum opening the hearts and minds of the average American to receiving the Truth, our foundation must begin at the grassroots level.
With a solid grounding in Catholic morality, whether or not the populace official converts to the faith, will provide a much-needed base from which to work from.
The primary unit of society is the family, and the family is grounded in the union of the husband and wife. This does not mean non-married individuals can never play a role in restoring the culture, but even they must make an effort to promote real marriage and the growth of families with many children, even if not their own. This is an absolute necessity. As I addressed in my last article on the contraceptive mentality, a culture that despises children will soon die on the vine.
The next step is to organize communities above the family level. This includes, when possible, strengthening extended family relationships, meeting neighbors, and forming community associations. These associations can be geographically based (such as the local neighborhood) or purpose based such as material support groups of like-minded individuals to help each other out in the time of spirtual or material need. These are just examples, and the sky is the limit as to the types of communities and associations that can be formed.
Of course, the primary community should be your local parish community. Ideally, this is going to be a Traditional Latin Mass community because attendees of the TLM are most likely going to share traditional Catholic values and provide proper support for your faith. The TLM is what will connect the people to Calvary in the clearest, most deep way. The TLM community takes the person out of the world and refocuses him or her on eternal salvation and what really matters. Sadly, evangelical mega-churches and New Mass parishes only serve to ingrain the worldly culture into the person with their man-centered worship.
Above the community, or local level, is the state level organization. This is going to require those who live out the Catholic faith, who maintain moral lives and are willing to engage the public, to make efforts at influencing your local and state governments, depending on the situation. This may even require running for political office. In doing so, even if a losing effort, this will enable Catholics to “get the message out” with a focus on defending traditional values, even if not explicitly religious.
This is all just a beginning plan—food for thought. But with 2024 now upon us, with so much uncertainty and spirtual war surrounding us, sitting back and doing nothing in these times cannot possibly be what God asks of us. We should want to be saints. We must be saints. We have to try.